What I’m Playing #23: Sega Arcade System Problems and Alexey Pajitnov’s SEIZURES: THE GAME!

Hey everyone! I have two pieces of news. The first is I have Taito Milestones 3. I’m under embargo for another week and the game doesn’t come out until December 10, which is around the time I’ll be posting the review. The second news is that the main Tetris Forever review is done, edited, and ready. I’m really happy with how it turned out. It’s tough to review 17 different Tetris games (plus a game of Go!), but I’m so happy I did. I discovered a lot about what makes Tetris work and what its shortcomings are. So, where’s the review? Well, it’s not done because I’m adding extra reviews to it. So, what AM I playing?

I’m pretty sure this game tried to murder me.

Among the bonus reviews in Tetris Forever: The Definitive Review is the Sega Tetris Trilogy. It’s three arcade games licensed by Sega in the late 80s/early 90s that use the Tetris engine. And, today I found out that two of them, Tetris and Bloxeed, have variations depending on the hardware. So, dammit so much, I have to go back to the Sega Tetris.

Bloxeed on Sega System C hardware.

I thought I had already finished it. I have no idea if it does or doesn’t affect gameplay, but because I don’t know, I do have to play the variations before I publish. Also, from now on I’ll do my best to note what arcade hardware coin-ops are on in the headers for each review. In the case of Bloxeed, it’s both a Sega System 18 and a Sega System C release. It took me, oh, one second of seeing the gameplay to realize it’s not the same build.

Bloxeed on Sega System 18 hardware.

If you’re looking at the above screenshots and shrugging “so what?” trust me, I am too. But, I want to be thorough and FAIR, and that means I have to do all the hardware options. I really want this to be my best feature ever, and with these games, there’s just so many variations. Also, while it might be totally subtle like in the above pics, that’s only for that game. Other times? Not so subtle. This is Sega’s Arcade Tetris:

Sega System 16 Tetris

And this is.. Sega Arcade Tetris:

Sega System E Tetris

And literally as I was writing this piece, I realized that, yea, it’s going to make a difference. Goddammit, game developers of the 1980s: couldn’t you just put out one format like a normal company? And the funny thing is, this crap isn’t even the worst thing to happen to me today. In trying to be as comprehensive as possible, I discovered a little Famicom Disk System game called Knight Move designed by the man of the hour himself, Alexey Pajitnov. And it’s………. the single most strobe-heavy video game I’ve ever played. There’s nothing close. Not even the Jetsons for the NES. HUGE EPILEPSY WARNING for this video.

The idea is you have to hop around a grid using only the L-pattern of a chess knight. If you step on a tile three times, the tile breaks and you score points. You want to break as many tiles as possible before moving to the target piece, with the heart. Very clever idea and the game seems every bit as addictive and fun as Tetris. And it was even published by Nintendo! Why haven’t I heard of this? Maybe because nobody played it because that five second long strobe in the video above? It happens after every single round where you knock out even a single tile on the board. You know, the object of the game. Rounds of Knight Move (not to be confused with Knight Moves, a different game by Pajitnov) don’t take very long to finish, and depending on how you play, you could get a five second long ultra-violent strobe effect every 20 seconds or so, but probably closer to once or twice a minute. Unf*ckingreal, and everyone involved in this should be ashamed of themselves, even in 1990.

I’m still going to go forward with including the review of Knight Move in the feature, even though I can’t play it again. HOPEFULLY awareness of this game trickles to the current regime at Nintendo and they include it on Switch Online. When they do that, they tend to remove the strobe effects from NES games. I want a build of this I can play, because the two or three minutes I played before I figured out the object of Knight Move and then nearly had a seizure from it, I was having fun. I want to play this. I can take risks on some games, but Knight Move is totally out of the question. It’s just too intense with the flashing. What the f*ck were they thinking? Were they even thinking at all? Did they give themselves headaches and slap high fives?

The best thing I can say about it is that this reminds me how far we’ve come. This sh*t wouldn’t fly in the 2020s. I think even people who aren’t photosensitive are likely to get, at best, very annoyed by Knight Move. But, I think this is so intense a constant a strobe that it would affect more than people who typical consider themselves photosensitive. My father has never complained about strobe lights, loves walking through haunted house attractions (which tend to lean heavily on strobe lights), and in general is just unaffected by this stuff. He played Knight Move for ten minutes and complained that his eyes were killing him. And that kind of strobe effect is known to give people headaches. Nintendo absolutely should have put a stop to it. It’s too intense, even by the standards of the era, and it’s beyond the pale that it was allowed to be published in this state. What a shame. Completely ruins what seems like it could be a very fun game. So it’s going to be the angriest review in the feature, and the only review I’ve ever done for a game that I only played for two minutes. So that sucked.

Thankfully, I have seventy games that are either Tetris games or games inspired by Tetris to pivot to. For God’s sake, please don’t recommend more. I have a family that loves me.

An asterisk means the game is commercially available today, and if it is, I paid for a copy out of pocket.

Tetris (MSX) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Tetris (Arcade – Sega) – REVIEW (mostly) COMPLETE
Tetris (NES – Tengen) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Tetris (Game Boy)* – REVIEW COMPLETE
Flash Point (Arcade) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Blockout (Arcade)
Tetris (NES – Nintendo)* – REVIEW COMPLETE
Nintendo World Championships 1990 (NES) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Tetris (Wearable Game Watch) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Pipe Dream (Arcade)
Bloxeed (Arcade) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Klax (Arcade)
Columns (Arcade)
Hatris (Arcade)
Klax (Atari 2600)
Knight Move (Famicom Disk System) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Dr. Mario (NES)*
Klax (TurboGrafx-16)
Columns II (Arcade)*
Pipe Dream (NES)
Welltris (Arcade)
Hatris (TurboGrafx-16)
Puyo Puyo (Famicom Disk System)
Yoshi (NES)
Pyramid (NES)
Super Scope 6 (SNES)
Pipe Dream (Super Famicom)
Wordtris (SNES)
Yoshi’s Cookie (SNES)
Pac-Attack (SNES)*
Columns III (Sega Genesis)
BreakThru! (SNES)
Tetris 2 (SNES)
Wario’s Woods (SNES)
Tetris & Dr. Mario (SNES)
Dero~n Dero Dero (aka Tecmo Stackers, Arcade)*
Kirby’s Avalanche (aka Super Puyo Puyo, SNES)*
Super Bomberman: Panic Bomber W (Super Famicom)
Baku Baku Animal (Arcade)
Panic Bomber (Virtual Boy)
V-Tetris (Virtual Boy)
Magical Drop (Super Famicom)
Tetris Attack (aka Panel de Pon, SNES)*
Virtual Lab (Virtual Boy)
Tetris Plus (Arcade)
3D-Tetris (Virtual Boy)
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (Arcade, Re-Review)*
Cleopatra’s Fortune (Arcade)
Columns ’97 (Arcade)
Star Sweep (Arcade)
Tetrisphere (Nintendo 64) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Puyo Puyo Sun (Nintendo 64)
Tetris: The Grand Master (Arcade)*
Wrecking Crew ’98 (Super Famicom)*
Kirby’s Super Star Stacker (Super Famicom)*
Wetrix (Nintendo 64)
Tetris DX (Game Boy Color) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Magical Tetris Challenge (Nintendo 64)
Gunpey (Wonderswan)
New Tetris (Nintendo 64)
Tetris: The Grand Master 2 – The Absolute PLUS (Arcade)*
Pokemon Puzzle League (Nintendo 64)*
Tetris Worlds (Game Boy Advance)
Rampage Puzzle Attack (Game Boy Advance)
Columns Crown (Game Boy Advance)
Tetris Advance (Game Boy Advance)
Meteos (Nintendo DS)
Hexic HD (Xbox 360)
Tetris DS (Nintendo DS)
Lumines Remastered (Played on Xbox Series X)*